Background:
As some of you know, I was transferred to the Philippines from Singapore in 2015.

It was not really a decision that I wanted at the time, but the company that I worked for decided they could no longer pay me the rates for a "Singapore" contract, and gave the choice of either terminating my contract or take a move to PH on a reduced contract.

I had never been to PH before, but I was working with mostly Filipinos in Singapore.
Many of the Filipinos that I'd work with here in PH had also been transferred back here from SG also as a cost cutting exercise, so I already knew quite a lot of them.

Anyway, I came and did a reconnaissance mission for a month and then returned to SG to tell my boss that I'd accept the move.

During that month I learned just how bad the Manilla traffic is, so decided 2 things:
1) No car
2) Live as close to the office as possible.

To work here, they had to get me a Pre-arranged Employment Visa (9G), before I could start work.
The company put me up in the Shangri-La Makati while I waited for my visa to be approved, and I waited and I waited, and I waited.
After a month I told them that I'd fly to Sydney to visit my family and let me know when its OK to come back.

After 2 weeks in Sydney.I returned and my visa was approved. So condo hunting started, and I managed to get a small one bed apartment directly over the road from the office.
At least I had the best commute of anyone else in my company. And to top it off, the bar that we would visit after work was on the ground flour of my condo, so any staggering home was also a breeze.

That lasted for 2 years until the company decided to move from their Makati office to a nice new building in BGC ( Bonifacio Global City ). Even though BGC borders with Makati, commuting between the 2 was never going to be an option, so I decided that I'd also relocate to BGC.

(to be continued)